Extend partition in Windows Server 2016 safely

It is not an easy task to expand disk drives for many computer users, even for some server administrators. Two reasons:

Do not know how to do this, is it very difficult?

Do not know which tool/software is the right choice, because a bad tool may cause system failure or partition corruption.

Windows Server 2016 has been released, more and more users ask how to extend volume on Windows 2016 Server. So in this article I’ll answer the questions and give detailed steps how to extend Server 2016 partition.

Is it difficult to extend partition on Server 2016?

Actually, it is very easy. Either Windows Disk Management or 3rd-party software provide graphic user interface. Server 2016 Disk Management provide Extend Volume Wizard to expand partition within few steps. However, there are many limitations of Disk Management and I’ll explain in next paragraph.

Which is the right tool to extend server volume?

It is hard to say, because everybody has his own choice, but to me NIUBI Partition Editor is better, why?

The unique software that integrated 1 Second Roll-Back technology, what’s that? This technology is able to automatically roll back the server to the status before resizing in ONE second, if software related error or hardware issue such as powerful failure occur during resizing partitions. So no longer to worry about Operating System and data safely. It is tremendous innovation in disk management industry.

The unique file-moving algorithm helps resize partition 30% – 300% faster than any other tools. Saving much time especially when there are large amount of files in the partition that you want to resize.

Extend NTFS partition on the fly without rebooting server. (close other running applications before starting this program)

To avoid mistake, all operations work in virtual mode before clicking Apply to execute. You can preview, cancel and redo any steps.

How to extend volume on Server 2016?

As I said above, there are 2 choice: Disk Management or 3rd-party software. Some people like to use Windows built-in utility, lets see how Disk Management works.

1. Extend partition with Disk Management

The first thing you should know is that only when there is adjacent Unallocated space on the right side, you can can expand a drive with Extend Volume.

Step 1: Right-click Windows on bottom left in Desktop and select Disk Management, where you’ll see all connected disk partitions.

Step 2: Right-click the partition you want to extend and select “Extend Volume…”

Step 3: The Extend Volume Wizard will be launched, click Next to continue.

Step 4: In the pop-up window, select the available space and click Next, if you want to use just part of the space, remember to type the value in Select the amount of space in MB:

Step 5: Confirm the operation and click “Finish” to proceed.

The extending operation complete in a short time, 20GB Unallocated space has been added to C drive.

But you cannot extend volume if there is no adjacent Unallocated space, when you right click the system C drive, the Extend Volume is grayed out.

What to do, delete D to get Unallocated space? NO, it is a BAD idea. With server partition software you can extend Server 2016 partition non-destructively.